The Expedition 11 crew -- Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and Astronaut John Phillips -- launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 8:46 p.m. EDT Thursday, right on schedule.

Their Soyuz TMA capsule reached orbit a little less than nine minutes after liftoff. Russian flight controllers reported the spacecraft’s solar arrays had deployed as scheduled, and that all appeared normal.

With this 11th crew of the International Space Station is European Space Agency Astronaut Roberto Vittori of Italy. Their Soyuz is scheduled to dock with the Space Station at 10:19 p.m. EDT April 16.

Expedition 11’s Krikalev and Phillips will spend about six months aboard the Space Station. Vittori will spend almost eight days on the Station conducting scientific experiments, and return to Earth with the Expedition 10 crew.

That crew, Commander Leroy Chiao and Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov, has been on the station since October. They will leave the station April 24 in the Soyuz that brought them to the orbiting laboratory. Their landing is scheduled for 6:09 p.m. EDT that day in Kazakhstan.

Highlights of the new crew’s mission include welcoming the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery on its STS-114 mission, the first Shuttle flight since the Columbia accident. Discovery crewmembers will conduct three spacewalks at the Station, deliver several tons of equipment and supplies and return to Earth with equipment and scientific experiments and trash from the Station.

Krikalev, 46, and Phillips, 54, will receive extensive handover briefings from their Expedition 10 predecessors, and will get training on the Station’s robotic Canadarm2.

They also may see the addition of a third crewmember to the Station this summer brought to the station by Atlantis on the STS-121 mission. Plans call for them to do two spacewalks, the first in August from the U.S airlock Quest in U.S. spacesuits, and the second, in September, in Russian spacesuits from the Pirs airlock. The spacewalkers will continue outfitting the station’s exterior and work with scientific experiments.

Krikalev and Phillips also will welcome the arrival of two Progress unpiloted supply vehicles. ISS Progress 18 is scheduled to reach the Station in June and ISS Progress 19 should be launched near the end of August.

In August, Krikalev, who also is Soyuz commander, and Phillips, who also will have the title of NASA ISS science officer, will move their Soyuz spacecraft from the Pirs docking compartment to the Zarya docking port. That will permit use of the Pirs airlock for spacewalk activity.

Krikalev is a veteran of five previous spaceflights, including two missions to the Russian space station Mir and two Shuttle flights. He was a member of the first Station Crew, serving aboard a much smaller ISS from Nov. 2, 2000, to March 18, 2001. He has spent a year, 5 months and 10 days in space. This flight should see him become the world’s most experienced space traveler.

Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, he graduated from what is now St. Petersburg Technical University in 1981 and then joined NPO Energia, the Russian organization responsible for human spaceflight. He was selected as a cosmonaut in 1985.

Record or not, just being in space isn’t what’s important, Krikalev says. "The job itself is very interesting for me, being there and being able to look back on Earth, to do something challenging." He said he probably hasn’t paid enough attention to that record.

Philips was born in Fort Belvoir, Va., and considers Scottsdale, Ariz., his home. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1972 and became a Naval aviator. After leaving the Navy in 1982, he earned a masters and doctorate in geophysics and space physics from the University of California in 1984 and 1987. He did postdoctoral work at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico.

He was selected as an astronaut in 1996. He was a member of the STS-100 crew of Endeavour in 2001. On that mission he coordinated two spacewalks at the Station to install Canadarm2.

Phillips has wanted to return to the Station ever since. "It was a wonderful place to be," he said. "The crew was doing a great job; they were having a good time." He wanted to stay longer then. Now he’ll have about six months there.

Krikalev and Phillips are the Station’s fifth two-person crew. After the Columbia accident on Feb. 1, 2003, the ISS Program and the international partners determined that because of limitations on supplies the Station would be occupied by two crewmembers instead of three until Shuttle flights resume.

The 11th crew will continue science activities, initially with facilities and samples already on the station, but later with experiments scheduled to arrive at the station aboard Discovery.

The science team at the Payload Operations Center at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will continue to operate some experiments without crew input and other experiments are designed to function autonomously.

Krikalev and Phillips are scheduled to spend about 180 days on the Station, returning to Earth in October, a little over a week after the arrival of their Expedition 12 successors.

november25

Hi David and Robert,BBC TV were very privileged to have pictures of this event on the luchtime news today-10 mins- very worth while-glad I had the TV on, an event not to be missed.Thanks to you 2 guys-for the above info.Hope more cs members in the UK can sss this as well.Regards to you both.This was posted by november25 3.0pm gmt

DavidH

Happy Birthday to John Phillips, who turns 54 today about the Soyuz on the way to ISS.

[This message has been edited by Robert Pearlman (edited April 15, 2005).]

Glint

quote:Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:New Station Crew Launches from Baikonur

...Their Soyuz is scheduled to dock with the Space Station at 10:19 p.m. EDT April 16....

I am interested in viewing the formation flight. Heavens-Above indicates that the ISS will make a pass over my area between 05:13 and 05:19 EDT that morning -- 17 hours before docking.

Currently Heavans-Above has no information available for Soyuz TMA-6. I'll check it again later for possible updates.

My question is will the Soyuz be leading or trailing the ISS during its pass and by how much?

Also, if anyone has the orbital elements for TMA-6 I would appreciate having them too.

Thanks.

On Edit: I just received an e-mail from AGI (developers of the Satellite Toolkit, a.k.a. STK) saying that the docking will be at 1419 GMT on Saturday, April 16 which would be at 10:19 a.m. EDT, not 10:19 p.m. EDT as posted in the original message. That's a non-trivial difference of 12 hours.

Can anyone clarify? If it is indeed 10:19 a.m. EDT then the chances of observing both spacecraft in formation, weather permitting, only five hours before at 05:12-19 a.m. EDT should be rather good, in my opinion.

[This message has been edited by Glint (edited April 15, 2005).]

Glint

As found in the e-mail in-baseket...

quote:NOTE:AGI's Launch Notification e-mails are sent after every launch to help you stay current with all new spacecraft launches. This e-mail has been sent as a courtesy from AGI.

Some satellites are not known (in terms of passes and visibility), or in this case won't last long enough to post on HA. When Heavens-Above misses things like this, you can ask and someone is always there to help.

Someone posted the TLE's for the Soyuz and its rocket a few minutes ago (check the hypermail archive).

So before it burns up (which will be very shortly) you should see Soyuz, rocket and ISS all in the same orbit but separated by several seconds to minutes.

Skywatchers in the Northeastern part of the US should set their alarm clocks for around 5 a.m. EDT on Saturday and head outside to get a view of International Space Station and -- as a bonus -- a Soyuz TMA-6 spacecraft that will be carrying three astronauts up to the Space Station.

From the Greater New York Area, the ISS should first become visible low toward the western horizon beginning at 5:13 a.m. It will move along a projected path that will take it from the west to the northeast in about four and a half minutes. The Space Station should appear as a whitish "star" with a slight yellowish tinge, moving with a steady speed across the sky. It should appear brightest -- perhaps magnitude -1 -- as it passes through the handle of the Big Dipper at about 5:14. A minute later it will closely pass by Polaris (the North Star) and begin to noticeably fade.

Following a short distance behind the Space Station, another, smaller "moving star" perhaps about magnitude +1 or +2 should be visible. This will be a Soyuz TMA-6 spacecraft which lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan late Thursday night. The Soyuz will be carrying the Expedition 11 crew to the Space Station.

The Soyuz spacecraft is expected to dock with the ISS late Saturday night. This means that both Space Station and Soyuz will appear as two separate entities as they speed across the dawn sky early on Saturday morning. The three-man crew consists of: Roberto Vittori, from Italy, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who is to be the Expedition 11 Commander on the ISS, and NASA astronaut John L. Phillips, who will be the Expedition 11 Flight Engineer.

The track of the ISS on Saturday morning from 5:12 to 5:17 a.m. EDT will run from southern Indiana, to western New York and up into northern Maine and New Brunswick. Those directly under this track will see the ISS/Soyuz tandem pass directly overhead, but those within a couple of hundred miles of the track should also be able to see both vehicles move across their sky on a general southwest-to-northeast path.

For other parts of the country, you can check to see if the ISS is scheduled to pass over your neighborhood by going to www.heavens-above.com. Note, however, that Heavens-Above does NOT provide a listing for the Soyuz TMA-6 spacecraft!

[This message has been edited by Tom (edited April 15, 2005).]

michaelSN99

hello ;-)

is anybody here able to take photographes from the soyuz-ISS docking event with an telescope ??